Friday, August 31, 2018

A One Woman Show! How exciting my first solo show was!
The biggest question was which pieces to choose. I needed to select 10 photographs that together would create a visual theme, showcase my best work and tell the story of who I am as a photographer.
What did those 10 photographs teach me about my style? First of all, I love color! I also love nature. Nature calms me and allows me to feel my place in the world. I always say that my happy place is hiking to the top of a mountain. I hope my work inspires people to experience the nature around them.
Since that first solo show, "Nature Colors", I realized that it is important to ask myself several questions: What is my style? Do I want to give myself a project and do something new? How do I want to grow as a photographer? How can my work reflect that growth?
Since that first show I have had a solo show at the Newburyport Art Association and The Firehouse Center for the Arts in Newburyport, MA as well as showing in several smaller venues in Newburyport.

I appreciate a gallery that puts the effort into having wonderful lighting for hanging art on their walls. Receptions are a fun way to kick off a show! Invite your friends and the public to view your work! Restaurants often invite artists to show art and offer it for sale such as The Purple Onion in Newburyport.

Now that I have shown this body of work I call "Nature Colors" in several venues I am experimenting with new styles and fun ways to edit my photographs. The next blogs are all about that!

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Textures are so much fun! You can make your own or buy them. I've done both and now I have a library of textures to last a very long time. I have to stop myself from buying more! There are many tutorials on the web to show you how to use them. I started with Hazel Meredith who did a webinar for Topaz. Find her at Meredith Images Blog. She creates fantastic images of grungy old cars!
I looked through my landscape images and found some potential!

I started with this:

Added two textures to get this:

The textures gave the image movement and cohesiveness as well as color! I got rave reviews from friends and the public so I decided to continue.

I looked for an image with a lot of negative space. This one is a perfect subject but it needed more:

Textures added depth and interest:

I have this image printed on canvas in a show now at the Newburyport Art Association in Massachusetts. I won an award for it!

Textures, like composites, are cutting edge for photography. I'm not going to abandon my love of capturing gorgeous landscapes, I can assure you. But I am also going to expand my abilities to play and be creative in my digital darkroom. Try it!

Friday, April 22, 2016

Outdoor portrait photography is a lot of fun and gives you great results when you keep a few things in mind as you shoot.
-When you know your what your location will be plan what your subject is wearing to coordinate and/or stand out from the natural surroundings. A couple of changes of clothing or props like hats, scarves, umbrella, book, flowers etc. will get your creative spirit flowing. In this shoot with my niece, I used her hat and a scarf as props. Her clothes blended with the winter woods and the scarf was a dramatic color addition.

-Don't forget to set your white balance appropriately. You will still want to play with it in Photoshop especially if the light changes as you are shooting. In this shoot the sun began to come out and changed the light dramatically. We stopped when it got too strong.

-I use manual mode and check my histogram frequently. Aperture preferred mode is also good for portraiture as you can set the f stop and get the depth of field you want without worrying about the shutter speed. Remember: make sure your shutter speed stays fast enough for a moving person!
-Be playful and have fun. Be clear with your subject what you want them to do and where you want them to look. They don't know!

Sunday, April 3, 2016

" Bohio" means home on Grand Turk. Our home away from home for our diving vacation. Grand Turk is a flat, small island that happens to be the seat of government for the Turks and Caicos Islands of the Caribbean - cruise ships come in for lunch and an afternoon at the beach; not very picturesque but the sand is divine.
Unexpected weather kept us out of the water for the first couple of days. But it did provide a chance for body surfing!

The Bohio restaurant has wonderful food!

The boat comes right up to our resort beach, we hop on and motor a short way to "The Wall". The Wall goes down 7000 feet but we explore only the first 100 feet down. Diving off Grand Turk is what people come here for - not the scenery and not the night life. The island is also full of dogs, who look alike and donkeys, who roam freely everywhere.

There was a guy on the beach everyday with a horse. He charged the tourists $40 a ride. Deb knows how to ride and she had fun! I had fun getting panning shots of her racing down the beach.

Sunday, November 1, 2015

Today I was analyzing each photograph from my 4 days in Acadia National Park for composition and sharpness. I chose a few images to play around with. I balanced the color, the contrast, the highlights and the shadows.
Then I started to enhance the overall feeling of the images. I began to play with color and contrast. I began to break some rules. It was fun and I was in the "zone". I felt tuned in to the mood of each photograph. I enhanced that mood in my digital darkroom.

Thomas Bay - The Narrows

"I am sure the next step will be the electronic image, and I hope I shall live to see it. I trust that the creative eye will continue to function, whatever technological innovations may develop." ~Ansel AdamsI feel very happy with the photographs I have created today. That creation began outdoors with my camera on a tripod in one of the most beautiful places on earth. I finished the creative process today with my computer much as Ansel Adams did in his darkroom.

"The negative is the equivalent of the composer's score, and the print the performance." ~Ansel Adams

Eagle Lake - sunset

Ferns near the Park Loop Road.

Birches - Acadia Wild Garden.

Photography is an art form. It is not only the faithful rendering of what we see in the world - we can leave that to the photo-journalists. It is the creative expression of what we have recorded with our cameras. As such it is unique to each photographer.

Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Portrait photography is not my first love. I am happiest above the tree-line knowing I got there by my own steam.
So why did I shoot a beach wedding? Many photographers support themselves with portrait photography. It pays the bills. It's a challenge, it's fun and people are endlessly interesting. Luckily, I'm retired and I don't need to do portraits. But... I'm finding out about the fun. And I'm learning a lot about photography as I do it!

The photographs are my wedding gift to the bride and groom.

How did I prepare myself? What are the major things a photographer needs to think about when shooting a wedding? Here's the short list:
~ Know the sequence of events of the ceremony.
~Who is in the wedding party? Who is family?
~Familiarize yourself with the location and plan your shots.
~If it's a large wedding you will need two people with cameras.
~Pray for overcast skies or at least lots of clouds, no sun (white dresses and sun don't get along)
~Indoors? Learn to use your flash well!
~Ask the bride what she wants and how close to them you can get.
~Look at lots of photos online for inspiration.

It was great and I had a wonderful time capturing their special moments. The best part is that they love the photos!

Saturday, May 30, 2015

In a little country town in New England lives a woman who tends her sheep with love. The sheep, in turn, give her soft, albeit dirty, wool in spring, which she trades for wool yarn.

I am invited to photograph her and the sheep. I'll give her thanks and pictures.

I came the first time when the snow was deep and the sky overcast. No pretty nature or travel photos here! This is an environmental portrait of my friend and her pet sheep.

It is time for the sheep to be fed out in their shed behind the barn where they live. No green grass this time of year but plenty of light green grassy hay to eat.
They can hear us coming and poke their heads out. Dinner time!

They can hardly wait for her to put the hay in the shed and start grabbing it out of her arms.
I found the sheep to be gentle and afraid of me. They are very used to her and are like pets. One of the white sheep is more curious and posed for portraits.

Eventually, they all settled down to chewing while my friend pet them and talked to them.

Spring came and the snow slowly disappeared from meadows and parking lots. The sheep were shorn. One early morning I came by to see how they looked minus their winter coats.
I realized that they really do look like little old ladies in night caps!

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About Me

My Happy Place: outside with my camera. The mountains, the shore, anywhere in the world is what I like to take images of.
My go to place for portraits is the beach. When I made the switch to digital photography I began to take classes in Photoshop, natural light and portrait photography.
I teach photography at the Boys & Girls Club of the Lower Merrimack Valley. I offer private classes also. See my "Classes" page above.
I am a member of the Newburyport Art Association and the Photography Interest Group associated with the NAA.
Click on My Galleries Website above to see more of my images.